The Real Deal.
April 6, 2012 1:22 PM Subscribe
Food Ingredients Most Prone to Fraudulent Economically Motivated Adulteration. The United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) highlights new research published in the April edition of Journal of Food Science. It examines 'the first known public database' - created by the USP - 'compiling reports on food fraud and economically motivated adulteration in food highlight the most fraud-prone ingredients in the food supply'.
The paper: "Development and Application of a Database of Food Ingredient Fraud and Economically Motivated Adulteration from 1980 to 2010 by Jeffrey C. Moore, John Spink, Markus Lipp" 'includes 1305 records, including 1000 records with analytical methods collected from 677 references. Olive oil, milk, honey, and saffron were the most common targets for adulteration reported in scholarly journals, and potentially harmful issues identified include spices diluted with lead chromate and lead tetraoxide, substitution of Chinese star anise with toxic Japanese star anise, and melamine adulteration of high protein content foods.'
The paper: "Development and Application of a Database of Food Ingredient Fraud and Economically Motivated Adulteration from 1980 to 2010 by Jeffrey C. Moore, John Spink, Markus Lipp" 'includes 1305 records, including 1000 records with analytical methods collected from 677 references. Olive oil, milk, honey, and saffron were the most common targets for adulteration reported in scholarly journals, and potentially harmful issues identified include spices diluted with lead chromate and lead tetraoxide, substitution of Chinese star anise with toxic Japanese star anise, and melamine adulteration of high protein content foods.'
Worst Band Name Ever.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:23 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by leotrotsky at 1:23 PM on April 6, 2012
Excellent. Something for me to forward to people on work Tuesday. Danke.
posted by Decimask at 1:35 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by Decimask at 1:35 PM on April 6, 2012
Is there a corresponding list or database of brand-name products that carry the adulterants identified here? Not to dismiss its obvious utility, but as far as I can tell it doesn't seem helpful to consumers unless it can tell us what actual items on the grocery store shelves to avoid. Or did I miss something?
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:52 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:52 PM on April 6, 2012
Remember, olive oil is green. Whatever that yellowish stuff is you're looking at, it probably isn't olive oil.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:56 PM on April 6, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 1:56 PM on April 6, 2012 [4 favorites]
Remember, olive oil is green. Whatever that yellowish stuff is you're looking at, it probably isn't olive oil.
Oy. This.
My wife and I were browsing the local megamart and my eyes were captivated by this lone quart jug of supposedly extra-virgin olive oil (that's what the label said!) on the shelf. The stuff was amber color! It wasn't even close to the green part of the spectrum. It was actually scary to look at and imagine someone buying and ingesting the stuff.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:04 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Oy. This.
My wife and I were browsing the local megamart and my eyes were captivated by this lone quart jug of supposedly extra-virgin olive oil (that's what the label said!) on the shelf. The stuff was amber color! It wasn't even close to the green part of the spectrum. It was actually scary to look at and imagine someone buying and ingesting the stuff.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:04 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Mental Wimp: "Do they count pink slime as adulteration?"
Why would they? Apart from its appearance, pink slime is pretty innocuous as far as industrial food products go.
So far, "Pink Slime" has been used since the 1970s without being linked to any negative health effects, beyond that of eating beef in general. The current backlash against the stuff has so far put at least put 500 American workers out of a job, and will result in approximately 1.5 million additional animals being slaughtered each year if it is banned completely, which will increase CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 1.2 million additional cars on the road, in addition to the (even larger) greenhouse effects of all the extra methane produced by increased cattle production and additional decomposition of the now-less-inefficiently-stripped carcasses.
The pink slime debacle could easily turn into one of the more harmful fake crises in recent memory. The media has done an incredibly irresponsible job of covering (ahem, manufacturing) this issue.
posted by schmod at 2:05 PM on April 6, 2012 [33 favorites]
Why would they? Apart from its appearance, pink slime is pretty innocuous as far as industrial food products go.
So far, "Pink Slime" has been used since the 1970s without being linked to any negative health effects, beyond that of eating beef in general. The current backlash against the stuff has so far put at least put 500 American workers out of a job, and will result in approximately 1.5 million additional animals being slaughtered each year if it is banned completely, which will increase CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 1.2 million additional cars on the road, in addition to the (even larger) greenhouse effects of all the extra methane produced by increased cattle production and additional decomposition of the now-less-inefficiently-stripped carcasses.
The pink slime debacle could easily turn into one of the more harmful fake crises in recent memory. The media has done an incredibly irresponsible job of covering (ahem, manufacturing) this issue.
posted by schmod at 2:05 PM on April 6, 2012 [33 favorites]
but as far as I can tell it doesn't seem helpful to consumers unless it can tell us what actual items on the grocery store shelves to avoid.
The base code exists on Android - the SOPA application. All one has to do is make a table and a place to get that data from.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:47 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
The base code exists on Android - the SOPA application. All one has to do is make a table and a place to get that data from.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:47 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
...and will result in approximately 1.5 million additional animals being slaughtered each year if it is banned completely...
This. When I was a school kid I remember people talking in praiseworthy tones about how the Plains Tribes would use every single part of the buffalo, right down to its brains and organs and the marrow in its bones, and how wonderful and efficient and sustainable it was for them to do so. But now because it's been called "pink slime" and seems icky our beef industry doing the same thing is frightfully bad.
posted by XMLicious at 2:54 PM on April 6, 2012 [16 favorites]
I'm guessing the plains Indians weren't soaking their meat in industrial chemicals and mixing the meat of hundreds of animals into one big batch. There's frugal and then there's "this sounds like a great way to introduce illness or chemical contamination into a meal."
posted by zippy at 3:16 PM on April 6, 2012 [8 favorites]
posted by zippy at 3:16 PM on April 6, 2012 [8 favorites]
Pink slime is terrible, but soup stock is wonderful! What?
posted by hattifattener at 3:24 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by hattifattener at 3:24 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
What makes it sound like a way to introduce illness moreso than eating ground beef in general? As schmod says, it's been used for almost half a century with no evidence of negative health effects.
Those terrible industrial chemicals, by the way, are the same ones that are used to purify water. Try drinking untreated water like people in the developed world have to or plains Indians would've and see how well that improves your health. Maybe I'm just clueless or something but I have no problem spraying down my wooden cutting board with "industrial chemicals" like a chlorine solution even after cooking up something as high-brow as choice cuts of meat from a single animal.
It certainly seems reasonable to me to label it but the absolute scorn of it seems more reminiscent of picky eating than any rational approach to food safety. There's lots of regulation the U.S. beef industry actually needs and I think that raising panic about this stuff damages that cause rather than improving anything.
posted by XMLicious at 3:34 PM on April 6, 2012 [7 favorites]
Those terrible industrial chemicals, by the way, are the same ones that are used to purify water. Try drinking untreated water like people in the developed world have to or plains Indians would've and see how well that improves your health. Maybe I'm just clueless or something but I have no problem spraying down my wooden cutting board with "industrial chemicals" like a chlorine solution even after cooking up something as high-brow as choice cuts of meat from a single animal.
It certainly seems reasonable to me to label it but the absolute scorn of it seems more reminiscent of picky eating than any rational approach to food safety. There's lots of regulation the U.S. beef industry actually needs and I think that raising panic about this stuff damages that cause rather than improving anything.
posted by XMLicious at 3:34 PM on April 6, 2012 [7 favorites]
gilrain: In terms of olive oil ...
That's helpful...for olive oil (I usually get Colavita extra virgin, as its reputation seems to be pretty good for a midrange brand as far as I can tell). But what about all the other potentially thousands of products that this databases hints could be adulterated? I try to be a smart shopper, read labels, avoid processed/canned foods as much as possible, etc. But if an ingredient isn't on the label and nobody on the Internet is shouting "avoid this product", heaven only knows what I'm ingesting.
Notwithstanding rough ashlar's mention of some sort of DIY project involving Android code (??), most people - myself included - aren't programmers or database analysts. A straightforward list of "Brand X product Y has adulterants A, B, and C" is the only practical way to get the relevant information to consumers. Again, this database is a good start, but unless I'm missing something there's a big disconnect between what it contains and what's useful for Joe and Jane Shopper.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:35 PM on April 6, 2012
That's helpful...for olive oil (I usually get Colavita extra virgin, as its reputation seems to be pretty good for a midrange brand as far as I can tell). But what about all the other potentially thousands of products that this databases hints could be adulterated? I try to be a smart shopper, read labels, avoid processed/canned foods as much as possible, etc. But if an ingredient isn't on the label and nobody on the Internet is shouting "avoid this product", heaven only knows what I'm ingesting.
Notwithstanding rough ashlar's mention of some sort of DIY project involving Android code (??), most people - myself included - aren't programmers or database analysts. A straightforward list of "Brand X product Y has adulterants A, B, and C" is the only practical way to get the relevant information to consumers. Again, this database is a good start, but unless I'm missing something there's a big disconnect between what it contains and what's useful for Joe and Jane Shopper.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:35 PM on April 6, 2012
I've dreamed for a long time of borrowing a handheld XRF detector, walking into Ranch 99 (our local Asian food market), and quantitating the amount of lead in all the Chinese-imported food.
posted by benzenedream at 3:49 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by benzenedream at 3:49 PM on April 6, 2012
Adulterated milk, you say?
Crossing the border from Canada to the US (or vice versa), one thing is clear: Canadian milk.
Seriously. Canadian milk is translucent; American milk is opaque. The difference is a bit shocking, really. I don't know which one, if either, is the real deal, but something is definitely up with at least one of them.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:54 PM on April 6, 2012
Crossing the border from Canada to the US (or vice versa), one thing is clear: Canadian milk.
Seriously. Canadian milk is translucent; American milk is opaque. The difference is a bit shocking, really. I don't know which one, if either, is the real deal, but something is definitely up with at least one of them.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:54 PM on April 6, 2012
Seriously. Canadian milk is translucent; American milk is opaque. The difference is a bit shocking, really. I don't know which one, if either, is the real deal, but something is definitely up with at least one of them.
Milk is supposed to be opaque because of the fat globules. You take out the fat and all you have left is casein which is where you get translucent white water that shouldn't be allowed to be called milk.
posted by Talez at 4:01 PM on April 6, 2012
Milk is supposed to be opaque because of the fat globules. You take out the fat and all you have left is casein which is where you get translucent white water that shouldn't be allowed to be called milk.
posted by Talez at 4:01 PM on April 6, 2012
Everything old is new again - I guess we have to do this every 100 years or so.
posted by jocelmeow at 4:06 PM on April 6, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by jocelmeow at 4:06 PM on April 6, 2012 [2 favorites]
You can't use color as a guide for olive oil. First, it's pretty easy for a disreputable supplier to color the oil or run it with leaves, etc. Secondly, the oliver varietal and method of pressing can also affect the color. Some olives varietals will run yellow to amber even when cold-pressed.
posted by borges at 4:25 PM on April 6, 2012 [7 favorites]
posted by borges at 4:25 PM on April 6, 2012 [7 favorites]
Thanks for this VikingSword, interesting read.
I'm wondering how much it would cost for a consumer group to test a dozen brands of olive oil?
posted by storybored at 4:32 PM on April 6, 2012
I'm wondering how much it would cost for a consumer group to test a dozen brands of olive oil?
posted by storybored at 4:32 PM on April 6, 2012
Should we consider deceptive or fraudulent the bottling of supermarket brands of olive oil in green bottles?
This is pretty routine. Yes, I know you're saying "who buys supermarket brands of olive oil?"
posted by bad grammar at 4:34 PM on April 6, 2012
This is pretty routine. Yes, I know you're saying "who buys supermarket brands of olive oil?"
posted by bad grammar at 4:34 PM on April 6, 2012
The green glass is supposedly to protect the olive oil from turning rancid on exposure to light, the way beer is bottled in brown bottles, but also disguises the color.
posted by bad grammar at 4:35 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by bad grammar at 4:35 PM on April 6, 2012
Ah, it turns out that testing olive oil, especially the extra virgin stuff is a lot harder than just lab work -- as described in this excellent New Yorker article on widespread olive oil fraud:
In 1991, the E.U., recognizing that laboratory tests fail to expose many acts of adulteration, instituted strict taste and aroma requirements for each grade of olive oil and established tasting panels, certified by the International Olive Oil Council, an office created by the United Nations, to enforce them.
posted by storybored at 4:46 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
In 1991, the E.U., recognizing that laboratory tests fail to expose many acts of adulteration, instituted strict taste and aroma requirements for each grade of olive oil and established tasting panels, certified by the International Olive Oil Council, an office created by the United Nations, to enforce them.
posted by storybored at 4:46 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
You can't use color as a guide for olive oil. First, it's pretty easy for a disreputable supplier to color the oil or run it with leaves, etc. Secondly, the oliver varietal and method of pressing can also affect the color. Some olives varietals will run yellow to amber even when cold-pressed.
I was going to say the same thing. Younger, greener olives also have more chlorophyll than more mature fruit. The combination of chlorophyll and light also makes the oil oxidize more quickly; however, in the absence of light chlorophyll acts as an anti-oxidant.
The easiest way to not think about olive oil: buy California olive oil in a small green or opaque container. Less likely to be adulterated, less chance of being (or going) rancid before you use it.
posted by oneirodynia at 4:48 PM on April 6, 2012 [3 favorites]
I was going to say the same thing. Younger, greener olives also have more chlorophyll than more mature fruit. The combination of chlorophyll and light also makes the oil oxidize more quickly; however, in the absence of light chlorophyll acts as an anti-oxidant.
The easiest way to not think about olive oil: buy California olive oil in a small green or opaque container. Less likely to be adulterated, less chance of being (or going) rancid before you use it.
posted by oneirodynia at 4:48 PM on April 6, 2012 [3 favorites]
Storybored: The Australian Consumer watchdog has done just that.
Pull quote: Half the oils on test – most of which are imported from Italy and Spain – don’t meet international standards for “extra virgin”.
posted by dangerousdan at 5:03 PM on April 6, 2012
Pull quote: Half the oils on test – most of which are imported from Italy and Spain – don’t meet international standards for “extra virgin”.
posted by dangerousdan at 5:03 PM on April 6, 2012
I've read that olive oil is rarely sold adulterated in, for instance, Italy and Spain, as the locals have been using it plentifully for far longer than us and know what it should taste like. It's the stuff sold abroad in countries in which it's relatively newly popular that is adulterated.
Actually, no. Olive oil sold in Italy, and exported from Italy is so frequently adulterated, that I for one, simply refuse to buy any Italian OO. Italy imports a ton of olive oil too (f.ex. from Spain), repackages it, and then exports again. The article linked to by storyboard above is quite correct - the fraud is so pervasive that no brand is immune and no company no matter how large (from the article: Nestlé, Unilever, Bertolli, and Oleifici Fasanesi etc.). I hear "Italian Olive Oil" and I flee in the other direction, which is a shame, because good Italian olive oil certainly exists... unfortunately, there is no way of telling if you're getting the good stuff or the fake stuff - and so, sadly, it must be off limits altogether, good or bad.
The advice here is good - California or local olive oil is a good bet, because it's likely to be fresh and not have to travel large distances (if you live in CA), and there is less of a culture of adulteration, unlike with imported EVOO. You can also try establishing a personal relationship with a grower.
Together with a bunch of friends, I do a group buy of EVOO once a year - we have our sources, but it is not cheap - crucially, we also do lab testing for polyphenol content. The science of nutrition is in constant flux, but the latest research seems to point to the health benefits of EVOO being down to EVOO-specific polyphenols. Therefore, testing for polyphenol content is a great way of ascertaining that you are getting the real stuff - can't really fake that. Important point - various cultivars of olive oil have dramatically different polyphenol content - and sadly, a lot of California cultivars are low in polyphenol content. Other issues are involved too, like how close to the harvest your olive oil source is and extraction methodology. The only way to make 100% sure you're getting the best of the best stuff, is to test the stuff at a lab - but that gets pricy when you test from many growers.
When I finally got my first batch of the bulk buy - immediately after harvest and tested for the highest polyphenol content - I was shocked by how very different it tasted than any other EVOO I've had, even compared to the super-expensive stuff from specialty suppliers. The taste is very, very strong - burning almost.
Of course, it's not practical for everyone to go to such extremes, which is why the best advice is still to buy local olive oil whose provenance you know, from a high volume seller (so it doesn't sit on the shelf, like it does for so much EVOO at f.ex. Whole Foods; Trader Joe's is much better from that point of view). Buy stuff that's been bottled recently (close to the harvest), and kept in good condition (dark and cool); EVOO should not be used if it's more than 12 months from bottling at the latest.
posted by VikingSword at 5:23 PM on April 6, 2012 [4 favorites]
Actually, no. Olive oil sold in Italy, and exported from Italy is so frequently adulterated, that I for one, simply refuse to buy any Italian OO. Italy imports a ton of olive oil too (f.ex. from Spain), repackages it, and then exports again. The article linked to by storyboard above is quite correct - the fraud is so pervasive that no brand is immune and no company no matter how large (from the article: Nestlé, Unilever, Bertolli, and Oleifici Fasanesi etc.). I hear "Italian Olive Oil" and I flee in the other direction, which is a shame, because good Italian olive oil certainly exists... unfortunately, there is no way of telling if you're getting the good stuff or the fake stuff - and so, sadly, it must be off limits altogether, good or bad.
The advice here is good - California or local olive oil is a good bet, because it's likely to be fresh and not have to travel large distances (if you live in CA), and there is less of a culture of adulteration, unlike with imported EVOO. You can also try establishing a personal relationship with a grower.
Together with a bunch of friends, I do a group buy of EVOO once a year - we have our sources, but it is not cheap - crucially, we also do lab testing for polyphenol content. The science of nutrition is in constant flux, but the latest research seems to point to the health benefits of EVOO being down to EVOO-specific polyphenols. Therefore, testing for polyphenol content is a great way of ascertaining that you are getting the real stuff - can't really fake that. Important point - various cultivars of olive oil have dramatically different polyphenol content - and sadly, a lot of California cultivars are low in polyphenol content. Other issues are involved too, like how close to the harvest your olive oil source is and extraction methodology. The only way to make 100% sure you're getting the best of the best stuff, is to test the stuff at a lab - but that gets pricy when you test from many growers.
When I finally got my first batch of the bulk buy - immediately after harvest and tested for the highest polyphenol content - I was shocked by how very different it tasted than any other EVOO I've had, even compared to the super-expensive stuff from specialty suppliers. The taste is very, very strong - burning almost.
Of course, it's not practical for everyone to go to such extremes, which is why the best advice is still to buy local olive oil whose provenance you know, from a high volume seller (so it doesn't sit on the shelf, like it does for so much EVOO at f.ex. Whole Foods; Trader Joe's is much better from that point of view). Buy stuff that's been bottled recently (close to the harvest), and kept in good condition (dark and cool); EVOO should not be used if it's more than 12 months from bottling at the latest.
posted by VikingSword at 5:23 PM on April 6, 2012 [4 favorites]
Is there a corresponding list or database of brand-name products that carry the adulterants identified here?
The USP is mostly a thing for quality control people, not the general consumer. I used to get a monthly e-mail asking if I had any commentary on the current batch of USP monographs and the like.
The average name brand might not be the very highest quality out there, but they're not spray painting grass seed black and selling it as poppy seed, adding melamine to milk to jack up the protein count, or, to use the big drug example from recent memory, adding oversulfonated chondroitin sulfate to their raw heparin to make it look like there's more heparin in there.
This is the sort of thing that shouldn't make it into products because a QC lab somewhere should catch it; some phone calls made; and federal marshals come a calling. What has happened, though, is that some fairly smart (though thoroughly skeevy) people out there have started to look at the assays used to determine raw material quality and carefully picked adulterants that won't be detected by the assays used in pretty much everyone's QC department (some of them mandated by law).
It's a security monoculture problem, but now the QC side of things has caught on and is trying to be more proactive.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:45 PM on April 6, 2012 [2 favorites]
The USP is mostly a thing for quality control people, not the general consumer. I used to get a monthly e-mail asking if I had any commentary on the current batch of USP monographs and the like.
The average name brand might not be the very highest quality out there, but they're not spray painting grass seed black and selling it as poppy seed, adding melamine to milk to jack up the protein count, or, to use the big drug example from recent memory, adding oversulfonated chondroitin sulfate to their raw heparin to make it look like there's more heparin in there.
This is the sort of thing that shouldn't make it into products because a QC lab somewhere should catch it; some phone calls made; and federal marshals come a calling. What has happened, though, is that some fairly smart (though thoroughly skeevy) people out there have started to look at the assays used to determine raw material quality and carefully picked adulterants that won't be detected by the assays used in pretty much everyone's QC department (some of them mandated by law).
It's a security monoculture problem, but now the QC side of things has caught on and is trying to be more proactive.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:45 PM on April 6, 2012 [2 favorites]
One of the best travel experiences of my life was when the owner of the old house we rented outside of Florence brought us down to his barns and showed us a room full of giant (much bigger than I could get my arms around) ancient terracotta pots filled with olive oil from his own trees. Then let us fill as many bottles as we could carry. My Italian stinks, but DIO MIO that stuff was the true nectar of the gods. I feel so lost now.
posted by argonauta at 6:04 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by argonauta at 6:04 PM on April 6, 2012
Yeah, I think that New Yorker piece (or similar) was posted to MeFi. After that, I've avoid imported OO. It does help that I'm in the SF Bay Area and so California OO is "local" and fairly plentiful.
posted by MikeKD at 6:14 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by MikeKD at 6:14 PM on April 6, 2012
Why would they? Apart from its appearance, pink slime is pretty innocuous as far as industrial food products go.
Besides reasons of disgust?
So far, "Pink Slime" has been used since the 1970s without being linked to any negative health effects, beyond that of eating beef in general.
There are lots of things that, if you sterilize them, they become safe to eat. That does not mean we necessarily want to eat them, much less have them be put into our food without our knowledge to the extent that they're inescapable.
The current backlash against the stuff has so far put at least put 500 American workers out of a job, and will result in approximately 1.5 million additional animals being slaughtered each year if it is banned completely, which will increase CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 1.2 million additional cars on the road, in addition to the (even larger) greenhouse effects of all the extra methane produced by increased cattle production and additional decomposition of the now-less-inefficiently-stripped carcasses.
Yeah, that sucks. But not eating meat at all would help the envirionment even more. Or we could just get all our sustinence directly out of the garbage.
And arguing that we should accept wet pink viscera paste as a food ingredient because it helps the people who make it keep their jobs sounds like classic equivication, an excuse for makework.
Oh and also -- CITE, PLZ.
posted by JHarris at 6:18 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Besides reasons of disgust?
So far, "Pink Slime" has been used since the 1970s without being linked to any negative health effects, beyond that of eating beef in general.
There are lots of things that, if you sterilize them, they become safe to eat. That does not mean we necessarily want to eat them, much less have them be put into our food without our knowledge to the extent that they're inescapable.
The current backlash against the stuff has so far put at least put 500 American workers out of a job, and will result in approximately 1.5 million additional animals being slaughtered each year if it is banned completely, which will increase CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 1.2 million additional cars on the road, in addition to the (even larger) greenhouse effects of all the extra methane produced by increased cattle production and additional decomposition of the now-less-inefficiently-stripped carcasses.
Yeah, that sucks. But not eating meat at all would help the envirionment even more. Or we could just get all our sustinence directly out of the garbage.
And arguing that we should accept wet pink viscera paste as a food ingredient because it helps the people who make it keep their jobs sounds like classic equivication, an excuse for makework.
Oh and also -- CITE, PLZ.
posted by JHarris at 6:18 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
And arguing that we should accept wet pink viscera paste as a food ingredient because it helps the people who make it keep their jobs sounds like classic equivication, an excuse for makework.
How about accepting wet viscera paste as a food ingredient because wet viscera paste encased in actual intact pieces of viscera - y'know, sausage - is something that humans have always eaten as food. Labeling sounds fine, sure, it's just the "OH MY GOD THERE ARE CHEAP PIECES OF GROUND-UP COW IN MY CHEAP GROUND-UP COW" reaction that is silly. It should not be surprising that other food products that involve mashing meat up to the point it's an unrecognizable paste may contain the same things as sausage.
Didn't you ever wonder why a pound of ground beef is cheaper than a pound of steak? It's because it's not ground-up steak.
posted by XMLicious at 6:48 PM on April 6, 2012 [2 favorites]
schmod: "So far, "Pink Slime" has been used since the 1970s"
Citation needed.
BPI wasn't even formed until 1981, and wikipedia says that 1994 was when "Eldon Roth, founder of Beef Products Inc. (BPI), began work on the 'pH Enhancement System,' which disinfects meat using ammonia." (emphasis added)
And ABC didn't start all this just recently. I remember BPI being in the news (AP, I believe) for providing questionable beef products to schools under the US federal school lunch program over a year ago. IIRC, he also got in trouble for adjusting his ammonia levels out of whack with what the FDA had approved. IIRC, he dropped the ammonia levels low enough (to reduce complaints about his product seeming rancid) that e. coli was detected in some batches of his product.
Regardless, I don't have a horse in this race. I think the issue is that most people think that, at a minimum, the stuff should require labeling wherever it's used so consumers can decide for themselves.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 6:52 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Citation needed.
BPI wasn't even formed until 1981, and wikipedia says that 1994 was when "Eldon Roth, founder of Beef Products Inc. (BPI), began work on the 'pH Enhancement System,' which disinfects meat using ammonia." (emphasis added)
And ABC didn't start all this just recently. I remember BPI being in the news (AP, I believe) for providing questionable beef products to schools under the US federal school lunch program over a year ago. IIRC, he also got in trouble for adjusting his ammonia levels out of whack with what the FDA had approved. IIRC, he dropped the ammonia levels low enough (to reduce complaints about his product seeming rancid) that e. coli was detected in some batches of his product.
Regardless, I don't have a horse in this race. I think the issue is that most people think that, at a minimum, the stuff should require labeling wherever it's used so consumers can decide for themselves.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 6:52 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Those terrible industrial chemicals, by the way, are the same ones that are used to purify water
I trust my municipal water company, whose job it is to produce safe and clean water, more than I do US meat packing plants, which have a not-so-great record of oversight or focus on health.
posted by zippy at 6:53 PM on April 6, 2012
I trust my municipal water company, whose job it is to produce safe and clean water, more than I do US meat packing plants, which have a not-so-great record of oversight or focus on health.
posted by zippy at 6:53 PM on April 6, 2012
US meat packing plants, which have a not-so-great record of oversight or focus on health
Exactly! That's what I'm saying - there are real safety issues with the U.S. meat industry that ought to be addressed, ones that are much more demonstrably faulty or dangerous than something that "sounds like" it's more dangerous than other ground beef.
Ground beef, which has to be irradiated and sterilized in all sorts of ways anyhow. Not to mention cooked. Don't try to do steak tartare with ground beef.
posted by XMLicious at 7:14 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Milk is supposed to be opaque because of the fat globules. You take out the fat and all you have left is casein which is where you get translucent white water that shouldn't be allowed to be called milk.
FWIW, commercial milk in the US has the fat removed at the beginning of processing. The milkfat is then re-introduced in exact amounts to bring it to the various versions (skim, 1%, 2%, whole)
posted by Thorzdad at 7:16 PM on April 6, 2012
FWIW, commercial milk in the US has the fat removed at the beginning of processing. The milkfat is then re-introduced in exact amounts to bring it to the various versions (skim, 1%, 2%, whole)
posted by Thorzdad at 7:16 PM on April 6, 2012
The pink slime debacle could easily turn into one of the more harmful fake crises in recent memory. The media has done an incredibly irresponsible job of covering (ahem, manufacturing) this issue.
You're missing the point of why the pink slime thing is such a scandal though, schmod.
It's not that it's unhealthy, if it is, it's that it's a filler material that most of us were never told we were eating (well, not me personally; I don't eat red meat, but all the same...).
There's a long, long history of butchers injecting meats with water, or mixing in other inferior quality fillers to weigh them down, without informing their customers, and as far as market abuses go, it's one of the oldest tricks in the book--as I said in other thread on this topic, it's as old and universally recognized as fraudulent as the butcher putting his thumb on the scales. Only the gullible American consumer would actually stand up and defend the practice! Pawning off meat padded with inferior filler products on unsuspecting rubes is a form of marketplace fraud that dates back practically to the middle ages.
The reason the pink slime story is important and should be taken seriously is that it highlights how much the markets in the US are rife with practices that throughout history have been broadly recognized as fraud, only as consumers, we in the US are too credible and accepting to make a stink about it. There seems to be a prevailing attitude of--well, whatever it is, if it doesn't make us sick, we should just shovel it in, if that's what they want to sell us.
That's a terrible attitude to bring into the market place, and it makes consumers in the US look like history's biggest suckers. Good for you or not, people did not know that what they thought was beef was actually in large part gristle and other floor sweepings. If you can't understand why people would be upset about that, you're far too trusting a person.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:24 PM on April 6, 2012 [9 favorites]
You're missing the point of why the pink slime thing is such a scandal though, schmod.
It's not that it's unhealthy, if it is, it's that it's a filler material that most of us were never told we were eating (well, not me personally; I don't eat red meat, but all the same...).
There's a long, long history of butchers injecting meats with water, or mixing in other inferior quality fillers to weigh them down, without informing their customers, and as far as market abuses go, it's one of the oldest tricks in the book--as I said in other thread on this topic, it's as old and universally recognized as fraudulent as the butcher putting his thumb on the scales. Only the gullible American consumer would actually stand up and defend the practice! Pawning off meat padded with inferior filler products on unsuspecting rubes is a form of marketplace fraud that dates back practically to the middle ages.
The reason the pink slime story is important and should be taken seriously is that it highlights how much the markets in the US are rife with practices that throughout history have been broadly recognized as fraud, only as consumers, we in the US are too credible and accepting to make a stink about it. There seems to be a prevailing attitude of--well, whatever it is, if it doesn't make us sick, we should just shovel it in, if that's what they want to sell us.
That's a terrible attitude to bring into the market place, and it makes consumers in the US look like history's biggest suckers. Good for you or not, people did not know that what they thought was beef was actually in large part gristle and other floor sweepings. If you can't understand why people would be upset about that, you're far too trusting a person.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:24 PM on April 6, 2012 [9 favorites]
Exactly! That's what I'm saying - there are real safety issues with the U.S. meat industry that ought to be addressed, ones that are much more demonstrably faulty or dangerous than something that "sounds like" it's more dangerous than other ground beef.
Yes, and ... until those safety issues are addressed, wouldn't it be wise for the meat industry to keep things nice and simple? The have a dodgy record, and so it seems prudent to stay in the comfortable zone of 'we didn't add and then possibly fail to remove the following chemicals" as they (and the government) have not been so good at oversight or followthrough on problems.
This is the keep it simple principle, for me, in order to minimize errors, rather than an aversion to mystery meat or even chemically treated meat (mmm, lutefisk).
posted by zippy at 7:25 PM on April 6, 2012
Yes, and ... until those safety issues are addressed, wouldn't it be wise for the meat industry to keep things nice and simple? The have a dodgy record, and so it seems prudent to stay in the comfortable zone of 'we didn't add and then possibly fail to remove the following chemicals" as they (and the government) have not been so good at oversight or followthrough on problems.
This is the keep it simple principle, for me, in order to minimize errors, rather than an aversion to mystery meat or even chemically treated meat (mmm, lutefisk).
posted by zippy at 7:25 PM on April 6, 2012
The safety issues aren't going to get addressed if people say "let's get this dangerous-looking stuff out of ground beef!" and get it banned or get companies to temporarily say "buy our products, we don't use that pink slime stuff!", but that wasn't actually a dangerous part of the industry.
I'm also not sure how keeping things "nice and simple" by not sterilizing, if it's the chemical sterilization that you think is dangerous, would minimize errors.
saulgoodman, it really doesn't seem to me that this is a deceptive practice or some ages-old form of fraud. For me at least, back in grade school health classes and history classes we learned all about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, what hot dogs were made of, and that there are permitted levels of rat feces in flour. So I have never thought that "100% all-beef" hot dogs are made from steak or something and I've always know that "all-natural casings" means that it's made from intestines. And I've known that, say, cheese is made from rotten milk or that the yeast used to make bread and beer is a kind of fungus. (One delightful one I didn't know until recent years, though, is that salami is actually cured but uncooked raw meat that is just treated chemically and fermented with a type of mold or bacteria.)
If you go into a real butcher shop you see stuff like pig's feet, chicken gizzards, liver, etc. that is really cheap, various cuts of meat that are on the high end, and ground meats that are in the middle. To not know that there's stuff like this in ground beef and sausage seems to me more like the result of being uninformed or uninquisitive about how food is made rather than deception.
posted by XMLicious at 8:04 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
I'm also not sure how keeping things "nice and simple" by not sterilizing, if it's the chemical sterilization that you think is dangerous, would minimize errors.
saulgoodman, it really doesn't seem to me that this is a deceptive practice or some ages-old form of fraud. For me at least, back in grade school health classes and history classes we learned all about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, what hot dogs were made of, and that there are permitted levels of rat feces in flour. So I have never thought that "100% all-beef" hot dogs are made from steak or something and I've always know that "all-natural casings" means that it's made from intestines. And I've known that, say, cheese is made from rotten milk or that the yeast used to make bread and beer is a kind of fungus. (One delightful one I didn't know until recent years, though, is that salami is actually cured but uncooked raw meat that is just treated chemically and fermented with a type of mold or bacteria.)
If you go into a real butcher shop you see stuff like pig's feet, chicken gizzards, liver, etc. that is really cheap, various cuts of meat that are on the high end, and ground meats that are in the middle. To not know that there's stuff like this in ground beef and sausage seems to me more like the result of being uninformed or uninquisitive about how food is made rather than deception.
posted by XMLicious at 8:04 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
It's not that it's unhealthy, if it is, it's that it's a filler material that most of us were never told we were eating
Yeah. Personally, I'm more than happy to go to yum cha on a Saturday morning and eat tripe. And beef tendon, cooked properly, is delicious. But if I'm eating something described as beef mince I don't want either of those things in it.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 8:05 PM on April 6, 2012
Yeah. Personally, I'm more than happy to go to yum cha on a Saturday morning and eat tripe. And beef tendon, cooked properly, is delicious. But if I'm eating something described as beef mince I don't want either of those things in it.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 8:05 PM on April 6, 2012
I'm guessing the plains Indians weren't soaking their meat in industrial chemicalsNo, but they did smoke some of it, which infuses it with carcinogens.
That analogy actually gets to the heart of the problem here: it's not about techniques for killing germs which might also be unhealthy for people too, it's just about informed consent. I see smoked beef for sale, I decide that I enjoy a tasty cancer risk on occasion, I buy some. I see ground beef for sale, I don't expect ammoniacal pureed tendons.
posted by roystgnr at 9:13 PM on April 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
I'm all for accurate and honest labeling.
That said, if you're all bent out of shape over "pink slime" because there's some cartridge in there but have ever bought one of these quality products you should be required to have the word "Fool" tattooed on your forehead based on the Barnum observation.
I mean seriously - $350 per kg? That puts the gristle value at one third of fine silver.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:37 PM on April 6, 2012
That said, if you're all bent out of shape over "pink slime" because there's some cartridge in there but have ever bought one of these quality products you should be required to have the word "Fool" tattooed on your forehead based on the Barnum observation.
I mean seriously - $350 per kg? That puts the gristle value at one third of fine silver.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:37 PM on April 6, 2012
saulgoodman, it really doesn't seem to me that this is a deceptive practice or some ages-old form of fraud. For me at least, back in grade school health classes and history classes we learned all about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, what hot dogs were made of, and that there are permitted levels of rat feces in flour. So I have never thought that "100% all-beef" hot dogs are made from steak or something and I've always know that "all-natural casings" means that it's made from intestines.
Yes. In America, we've learned to rationalize away being taken for rubes, so we don't ask too many questions of the people who produce whatever it is we consume. We don't even much care what it is. That's exactly my point.
The issue with pink slime isn't like the "shocking" revelation kids get at a certain age that hot dogs are made out of assholes and elbows, so to speak. Sausage has traditionally been made of things some of us might find disgusting, and that should come as no surprise to any adult who's ever seen the inside of a butchery. But that's not what happened with pink slime (or if you prefer, "Dude, it's beef!"). Pink slime was a different, cheaper, much lower-quality product sold to cut producer costs by taking the place of the more expensive ingredient people thought they were paying for so that the producers could squeeze a little more profit out of them.
That's fraud, just as surely as bait-and-switch and the countless other age-old, deceptive business practices that most of us in America (myself usually included) have become too complacent to even notice, let alone complain about.
We truly have become the ultimate consumer culture--we couldn't be better trained, more willingly exploited consumers. We'll rationalize away almost any abuse of our trust in the marketplace, as long it doesn't kill us instantly.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:16 PM on April 6, 2012 [4 favorites]
Yes. In America, we've learned to rationalize away being taken for rubes, so we don't ask too many questions of the people who produce whatever it is we consume. We don't even much care what it is. That's exactly my point.
The issue with pink slime isn't like the "shocking" revelation kids get at a certain age that hot dogs are made out of assholes and elbows, so to speak. Sausage has traditionally been made of things some of us might find disgusting, and that should come as no surprise to any adult who's ever seen the inside of a butchery. But that's not what happened with pink slime (or if you prefer, "Dude, it's beef!"). Pink slime was a different, cheaper, much lower-quality product sold to cut producer costs by taking the place of the more expensive ingredient people thought they were paying for so that the producers could squeeze a little more profit out of them.
That's fraud, just as surely as bait-and-switch and the countless other age-old, deceptive business practices that most of us in America (myself usually included) have become too complacent to even notice, let alone complain about.
We truly have become the ultimate consumer culture--we couldn't be better trained, more willingly exploited consumers. We'll rationalize away almost any abuse of our trust in the marketplace, as long it doesn't kill us instantly.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:16 PM on April 6, 2012 [4 favorites]
It's not about the gristle, Kid Chalemagne--it's about the fraud. Just like when producers substitute melamine for protein.
Did you know, no lie, my dog has un-passable kidney stones that make him incontinent and prone to frequent kidney and urinary tract infections, forcing us to keep him in diapers every day, because some dog food producer in China decided to skimp on costs and use melamine to bump up the tested levels of protein in his food?
This happened a few years back when there was the melamine scare in baby formula, among other products. Our vet confirmed the cause of our dogs issues when it first became apparent at the time, and we were able to trace the food responsible to a specific lot known to have been tainted, so there's no doubt about it.
Our collective complacency over these issues has consequences.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:25 PM on April 6, 2012 [2 favorites]
Did you know, no lie, my dog has un-passable kidney stones that make him incontinent and prone to frequent kidney and urinary tract infections, forcing us to keep him in diapers every day, because some dog food producer in China decided to skimp on costs and use melamine to bump up the tested levels of protein in his food?
This happened a few years back when there was the melamine scare in baby formula, among other products. Our vet confirmed the cause of our dogs issues when it first became apparent at the time, and we were able to trace the food responsible to a specific lot known to have been tainted, so there's no doubt about it.
Our collective complacency over these issues has consequences.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:25 PM on April 6, 2012 [2 favorites]
ugh. "dog's issue"
posted by saulgoodman at 10:26 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by saulgoodman at 10:26 PM on April 6, 2012
If you know what sausages have always been made from and that they've always been made from intestines, what makes buying "100% all-beef, all-natural casing hot dogs" being taken for a rube?
Also, if you've been somewhere where you think there isn't any rat feces in the flour, I think it's actually you who have been taken as a rube. It isn't an American thing: rodents and insects get into grain storage.
This IS the same thing as hot dogs being made of the same kind of offal, scraps, and cheap meat. Anyone who thought that there wasn't already any of the bits that are used to make pink slime in ground beef was just being dumb and all of the pink slime plants closing down isn't going to change that. Why is some ground beef considerably cheaper than the rest? The same reason that ground beef in general is cheaper than steak: it has even more of the cheap stuff in it.
"Beef" does not refer to any particular part of the animal. If you thought you were getting ground steak or ground chuck, you haven't been bait-and-switched; you actually chose the beef paste product that wasn't labeled as being made just from steak.
Besides that, sorry to hear about your dog.
posted by XMLicious at 12:15 AM on April 7, 2012
Also, if you've been somewhere where you think there isn't any rat feces in the flour, I think it's actually you who have been taken as a rube. It isn't an American thing: rodents and insects get into grain storage.
This IS the same thing as hot dogs being made of the same kind of offal, scraps, and cheap meat. Anyone who thought that there wasn't already any of the bits that are used to make pink slime in ground beef was just being dumb and all of the pink slime plants closing down isn't going to change that. Why is some ground beef considerably cheaper than the rest? The same reason that ground beef in general is cheaper than steak: it has even more of the cheap stuff in it.
"Beef" does not refer to any particular part of the animal. If you thought you were getting ground steak or ground chuck, you haven't been bait-and-switched; you actually chose the beef paste product that wasn't labeled as being made just from steak.
Besides that, sorry to hear about your dog.
posted by XMLicious at 12:15 AM on April 7, 2012
I suspect that Pink Slime is a smoke bomb, set off to hide something seriously nasty. But it's only a suspicion. I don't think the media would conspire to make everyone think something that wasn't true. That would be paranoid. Wouldn't it?
posted by Goofyy at 12:43 AM on April 7, 2012
posted by Goofyy at 12:43 AM on April 7, 2012
This has been a longstanding issue. There's a fascinating book on Gutenberg about food adulteration, complete with chemistry tests to detect it.
It is really astonishing that the penal law is not more effectually enforced against practices so man who robs a fellow subject of a few shillings on the high-way, is sentenced to death; while he who distributes a slow poison to a whole community, escapes unpunished.
It has been urged by some, that, under so vast a system of finance as that of Great Britain, it is expedient that the revenue should be collected in large amounts; and therefore that the severity of the law should be relaxed in favour of all mercantile concerns in proportion to their extent: encouragement must be given to large capitalists; and where an extensive brewery or distillery yields an important contribution to the revenue, no strict scrutiny need be adopted in regard to the quality of the article from which such contribution is raised, provided the excise do not suffer by the fraud.
But the principles of the constitution afford no sanction to this preference, and the true interests of the country require that it should be abolished; for a tax dependent upon deception must be at best precarious, and must be, sooner or later, diminished by the irresistible diffusion of knowledge. Sound policy requires that the law should be impartially enforced in all cases; and if its penalties were extended to abuses of which it does not now take cognisance, there is no doubt that the revenue would be abundantly benefited.
posted by winna at 5:43 AM on April 7, 2012
It is really astonishing that the penal law is not more effectually enforced against practices so man who robs a fellow subject of a few shillings on the high-way, is sentenced to death; while he who distributes a slow poison to a whole community, escapes unpunished.
It has been urged by some, that, under so vast a system of finance as that of Great Britain, it is expedient that the revenue should be collected in large amounts; and therefore that the severity of the law should be relaxed in favour of all mercantile concerns in proportion to their extent: encouragement must be given to large capitalists; and where an extensive brewery or distillery yields an important contribution to the revenue, no strict scrutiny need be adopted in regard to the quality of the article from which such contribution is raised, provided the excise do not suffer by the fraud.
But the principles of the constitution afford no sanction to this preference, and the true interests of the country require that it should be abolished; for a tax dependent upon deception must be at best precarious, and must be, sooner or later, diminished by the irresistible diffusion of knowledge. Sound policy requires that the law should be impartially enforced in all cases; and if its penalties were extended to abuses of which it does not now take cognisance, there is no doubt that the revenue would be abundantly benefited.
posted by winna at 5:43 AM on April 7, 2012
It's probably a good thing for everyone that I have no power to grant titles to people, that hang by their name throughout their time on Metafilter*, because XMLicious would be getting DEFENDER ~of the~ SLIME.
If we ascribe noble virtues to XMLicious's crusade, I'm afraid that it remains that he's basically arguing that 1. it doesn't matter that we know what's in our food, and 2. if we do know, we shouldn't be disgusted by it, both things it's particularly hard to argue against. It's been remarked before that Metafilter is a place where you can damn near find anyone to argue in favor of anything, but I think it's an uphill battle here.
(*I'd probably get YE OLDE SOURPUSS or something.)
posted by JHarris at 7:17 AM on April 7, 2012 [2 favorites]
If we ascribe noble virtues to XMLicious's crusade, I'm afraid that it remains that he's basically arguing that 1. it doesn't matter that we know what's in our food, and 2. if we do know, we shouldn't be disgusted by it, both things it's particularly hard to argue against. It's been remarked before that Metafilter is a place where you can damn near find anyone to argue in favor of anything, but I think it's an uphill battle here.
(*I'd probably get YE OLDE SOURPUSS or something.)
posted by JHarris at 7:17 AM on April 7, 2012 [2 favorites]
I don't know what sausages you've been eating, but my chourico and linguicia and saugies and polish sausage is made locally from identifiable cuts of meat and added lard and sometimes beef fat, in a synthetic collagen casing. Expensive natural casing sausages are made from choice bits of organ meat, and the ingredients, especially the casings, are very carefully butchered, cleaned and prepared.
Pink slime are things that are unpalatable, like veins and tracheas - stuff that looks bad and tastes worse - or things no reputable butcher would dream of grinding into their sausage, because it's unsafe without careful slaughter and cleaning. These slaughterhouse sweepings are ground into filler, and sterilized with chemicals that also turn it from a grey mash into pink meat-alike that on its own, tastes bad and makes anything its added to taste worse. I'd much rather have grain filler, like Taco Bell's "ground beef" that's partly oatmeal, than chemically sterilized waste.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:32 AM on April 7, 2012 [5 favorites]
Pink slime are things that are unpalatable, like veins and tracheas - stuff that looks bad and tastes worse - or things no reputable butcher would dream of grinding into their sausage, because it's unsafe without careful slaughter and cleaning. These slaughterhouse sweepings are ground into filler, and sterilized with chemicals that also turn it from a grey mash into pink meat-alike that on its own, tastes bad and makes anything its added to taste worse. I'd much rather have grain filler, like Taco Bell's "ground beef" that's partly oatmeal, than chemically sterilized waste.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:32 AM on April 7, 2012 [5 favorites]
Adulterated food ingredients are right up there with unanticipated pdf links in my list of Gah!.
posted by srboisvert at 7:33 AM on April 7, 2012
posted by srboisvert at 7:33 AM on April 7, 2012
The beef bits they've been using for this "pink slime" was ... before the creation of this ammonia treatment system ... sold for use in pet food, in the form of meat meal and bone meal. It's not anything that would go in soup or stew. It's not anything that would go in sausage. It's not even anything that would go into hot dogs. It was an ingredient in pet food.
Now they have a process that allows them to make it (supposedly) safe and acceptable to feed to humans, and so they quietly slipped it into the human food chain, where they no doubt were able to charge far more for it than when selling it to pet food manufacturers. Just because they call it finely textured ground beef doesn't change the fact that it's dog food passing itself off as ground beef.
posted by Orb at 10:04 AM on April 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
Now they have a process that allows them to make it (supposedly) safe and acceptable to feed to humans, and so they quietly slipped it into the human food chain, where they no doubt were able to charge far more for it than when selling it to pet food manufacturers. Just because they call it finely textured ground beef doesn't change the fact that it's dog food passing itself off as ground beef.
posted by Orb at 10:04 AM on April 7, 2012 [4 favorites]
If we ascribe noble virtues to XMLicious's crusade, I'm afraid that it remains that he's basically arguing that 1. it doesn't matter that we know what's in our food,
Except of course for all of the places where I said that it's perfectly reasonable to label stuff that contains pink slime.
I actually think it's quite important to know what's in your food - I thought I've made that clear - and I think that much of the outrage over this is from people not having much awareness or inquisitiveness about what's in their food.
2. if we do know, we shouldn't be disgusted by it,
No, go ahead and be disgusted by it - I am quite disgusted by blue cheese and the smell of the mold used to make it, for example, or pork rinds, or the sweet cookies at my local asian market that contain dried squid, or many of the other things we've been talking about - just don't deceive yourself into thinking that if you stamp out the disgusting stuff that reflexively seems dangerous-looking to you, you have made any difference in food safety or the basic way that food is made.
I don't know what sausages you've been eating,
I haven't been eating them, I have been actually reading the ingredients lists on products at the supermarket. For an egregious example, look at canned "Vienna Sausage". This isn't some sort of secret and this is definitely the way sausages have always been made. Note that the quotes misattributed to Bismarck about how you never want to watch sausages being made are from the 1800s.
As far as this stuff being something that was only ever put in dog food before, I again have to say that I think you're misinformed if you think there's any edible part of an animal that isn't regularly eaten by humans and included in at least the cheaper human food products. Even the inedible things like bones and hide get boiled down and made into desserts (even expensive ones), margarine, and medicine capsules.
posted by XMLicious at 5:15 PM on April 7, 2012
Oh, you are fucking kidding me. You must be. Vienna Sausage is junk food eaten by poor people who can't afford something better... it's literally one step above cat-food. Here's the deal, tho... vienna sausage? Deviled Ham? Tinned corned beef? People know what it is, what goes into it. It's why working class and middle class people avoid it. Even poor people would rather have Dinty Moore or Spam... especially Spam, as it's explicitly pork shoulder and some spices.
Around here, Rhode Island, the most popular sausages are made locally. Portuguese sausages like Chourico and Linguicia and Morcilla - Polish sausage like smoked kielbasa - the local pork-and-veal hotdogs, "Saugies"- these are all made with identifiable (albeit cheap) cuts of pork, beef and veal. They're about as expensive as the bullshit over-processed "Hormell" brats and kielbasas. This isn't boutique stuff, it's all available at the local grocery chain big-box store.
Now, you tell me I should shut up and eat vienna sausage? That I should be happy there's something destitute people can eat that's as cheap as Tender Vittles pet-chow, because it is Tender-Vittles pet-chow with extra chemicals and sugar-sauce?
No?
Then why are you telling me to shut up and eat pink slime burgers?
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:59 PM on April 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Around here, Rhode Island, the most popular sausages are made locally. Portuguese sausages like Chourico and Linguicia and Morcilla - Polish sausage like smoked kielbasa - the local pork-and-veal hotdogs, "Saugies"- these are all made with identifiable (albeit cheap) cuts of pork, beef and veal. They're about as expensive as the bullshit over-processed "Hormell" brats and kielbasas. This isn't boutique stuff, it's all available at the local grocery chain big-box store.
Now, you tell me I should shut up and eat vienna sausage? That I should be happy there's something destitute people can eat that's as cheap as Tender Vittles pet-chow, because it is Tender-Vittles pet-chow with extra chemicals and sugar-sauce?
No?
Then why are you telling me to shut up and eat pink slime burgers?
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:59 PM on April 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Eat whatever you want. I feel more like you're telling other people what they need to eat. There's nothing wrong with my parents who eat this stuff, they're perfectly working class and by no means destitute, and my mother (who grew up on a farm, within spitting distance of Rhode Island btw) loves deviled ham and my father loves tinned corned beef much better than the corned beef I brine and make from scratch. (And better than brined corned beef bought at the store, it's not just that I'm a bad cook. :^)
If you're going to turn up your nose and tell other people that the food they eat is fit for animals, or like saulgoodman that anyone who knowingly eats this way is a rube, don't expect a sympathetic and warm reception. Don't shut up, by all means go on about the superiority of your cuisine, but don't expect to do so without response from me.
posted by XMLicious at 8:50 PM on April 7, 2012
If you're going to turn up your nose and tell other people that the food they eat is fit for animals, or like saulgoodman that anyone who knowingly eats this way is a rube, don't expect a sympathetic and warm reception. Don't shut up, by all means go on about the superiority of your cuisine, but don't expect to do so without response from me.
posted by XMLicious at 8:50 PM on April 7, 2012
Except of course for all of the places where I said that it's perfectly reasonable to label stuff that contains pink slime.
Then what is your point? I sense that when a legitimate objection to slime is brought up, you respond to it in a way that, while technically accurate, seems unsatisfying to the person you're responding to.
Part of this is a limitation of Metafilter, I'm feeling like, one has to flip up and down through a big flat comment space to get a coherent sense of an argument broken up by multiple replies. As a result, I get the feeling we're talking past each other a bit here.
posted by JHarris at 9:38 AM on April 8, 2012
Then what is your point? I sense that when a legitimate objection to slime is brought up, you respond to it in a way that, while technically accurate, seems unsatisfying to the person you're responding to.
Part of this is a limitation of Metafilter, I'm feeling like, one has to flip up and down through a big flat comment space to get a coherent sense of an argument broken up by multiple replies. As a result, I get the feeling we're talking past each other a bit here.
posted by JHarris at 9:38 AM on April 8, 2012
Why would they? Apart from its appearance, pink slime is pretty innocuous as far as industrial food products go.
I have no problem with its appearance. But it's chemically treated, which seems like adulteration to me. I'm not sure it fits the definition of "adulterated" for USP.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:08 PM on April 8, 2012
I have no problem with its appearance. But it's chemically treated, which seems like adulteration to me. I'm not sure it fits the definition of "adulterated" for USP.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:08 PM on April 8, 2012
Then what is your point? I sense that when a legitimate objection to slime is brought up, you respond to it in a way that, while technically accurate, seems unsatisfying to the person you're responding to.
I guess I don't have a specific overall point; I just see lots of things being said in pursuit of casting the pink slime stuff as some radically unusual/dangerous/deceptive practice that seem silly to me. Such as outrage that "wet pink viscera paste" is a food ingredient, when it has always been a food ingredient, and when we're talking about this in the context of people buying cheap wet pink beef paste as food anyways.
My comments being "unsatisfying" is a bit of an understatement: you may have noted that when I provided Vienna Sausage as a non-secret "egregious example" of how sausage has always been made Slap*Happy interpreted this as me telling him he "should shut up and eat vienna sausage".
This just doesn't seem guided by reason for the most part to me and the kind of negative outcomes schmod mentioned seem more likely than actual improvements in food quality or safety or transparency in the food industry.
posted by XMLicious at 4:53 PM on April 8, 2012
The ammonia treatment pink slime gets is pretty innocuous. Beneficial, really. Kills the e. coli or whatever.
A lot of meat -- a lot of meat -- actually is adulterated. Not with a cheaper cut from a cheaper animal or anything, but with salt water to plump it up. It weighs more, you pays more. Classic thumb-on-the-scale. Plus it's got the sodium that arteries crave.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:58 PM on April 8, 2012
A lot of meat -- a lot of meat -- actually is adulterated. Not with a cheaper cut from a cheaper animal or anything, but with salt water to plump it up. It weighs more, you pays more. Classic thumb-on-the-scale. Plus it's got the sodium that arteries crave.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:58 PM on April 8, 2012
Such as outrage that "wet pink viscera paste" is a food ingredient, when it has always been a food ingredient, and when we're talking about this in the context of people buying cheap wet pink beef paste as food anyways.
As a food ingredient it's disgusting. Finding out that it is in food will get me to stop eating that food. It's one thing to say it's "always" been in our food, but the situation doesn't actually seem to be as clear-cut as that -- you don't specify which food, and you neglect to mention the stuff is not legal to put into food in Canada or the U.K., so obviously there it's not always been in beef. And according to the 'pede, it was only legally approved for use in the U.S. since 2001. Ground beef might have always been made from less favorable portions of the cow, but honestly pink slime is still a level worse than average, is it not? How do you respond to that?
None of these things necessarily implies a health risk. The ammonia gas itself might ultimately be safe. It is still somewhat disturbing, however, that ammonia gas is a necessary step in its preparation, in order to make it safe.
There. That's something substantive you can respond to. As for my use of "wet pink viscera paste," one strives to find new ways to describe things. If it's inaccurate, please inform.
posted by JHarris at 5:51 PM on April 8, 2012
As a food ingredient it's disgusting. Finding out that it is in food will get me to stop eating that food. It's one thing to say it's "always" been in our food, but the situation doesn't actually seem to be as clear-cut as that -- you don't specify which food, and you neglect to mention the stuff is not legal to put into food in Canada or the U.K., so obviously there it's not always been in beef. And according to the 'pede, it was only legally approved for use in the U.S. since 2001. Ground beef might have always been made from less favorable portions of the cow, but honestly pink slime is still a level worse than average, is it not? How do you respond to that?
None of these things necessarily implies a health risk. The ammonia gas itself might ultimately be safe. It is still somewhat disturbing, however, that ammonia gas is a necessary step in its preparation, in order to make it safe.
There. That's something substantive you can respond to. As for my use of "wet pink viscera paste," one strives to find new ways to describe things. If it's inaccurate, please inform.
posted by JHarris at 5:51 PM on April 8, 2012
The ammonia treatment pink slime gets is pretty innocuous. Beneficial, really. Kills the e. coli or whatever.
The problem with the ammonia treatment is not so much the ammonia as the fact that the ammonia is necessary.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:11 PM on April 8, 2012 [2 favorites]
The problem with the ammonia treatment is not so much the ammonia as the fact that the ammonia is necessary.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:11 PM on April 8, 2012 [2 favorites]
It's one thing to say it's "always" been in our food, but the situation doesn't actually seem to be as clear-cut as that -- you don't specify which food, and you neglect to mention the stuff is not legal to put into food in Canada or the U.K., so obviously there it's not always been in beef.
But you didn't mention any particular food either when you protested accepting "wet pink viscera paste as a food ingredient". It didn't seem like you were acknowledging that it is a standard food ingredient and just complaining about a particular use of it.
I hadn't read in any of the pink slime stories so far that it isn't legal to put into food into Canada and the U.K. If I'm reading this book correctly this sort of thing industrially produced (though I haven't just been talking about an industrial product) has been used in the U.K. for decades, then in 1995 the use of cattle vertebrae in making it was banned, then in 2001 "MRM" (mechanically recovered meat) from sheep, cattle, and goats was banned due to concern about BSE / mad cow disease.
So "wet pink viscera paste" (which seems like a perfectly serviceable descriptive term to me that would encompass both pink slime and any sausage filling with a high percentage of offal in it) from poultry and pork is a legal food ingredient in the UK (and if I'm reading some other sources correctly, can even be labeled as "meat" under UK labeling laws) and the reason it isn't made from cattle any more is because of concerns a decade ago about BSE. But no one so far in this thread has mentioned danger from mad cow disease as an objection to pink slime. Is this what was said in the source you were reading?
If there's an actual risk from BSE involved, that would be reason to ban it, but I haven't heard that so far and that's a completely different notion from wet pink viscera paste being an unheard-of outrageous food ingredient.
Re: ammonia gas, again, this is a technology used in treating water and ground beef in general already gets treated with biocides or biocidal processes like irradiation to remove e. coli and other contaminants.
Since we're continuing to discuss this and re-hashing old arguments: what about gelatin / aspic? As I pointed out above, it's made from inedible parts of animals like the bones and skin. It's in everything from marshmallows and margarine up to and including some quite traditional fancy high-brow delicacies, just ask any dedicated vegetarian for confirmation of this. Does that receive the same response? Is it equally disturbing if it's sanitized or sterilized? (And I'll repeat: I sanitize every surface raw meat comes in contact with as well as things like wood-handled knives I use for preparation, don't you? If you don't, I again have to question how much these complaints are actually concerned with food safety.)
posted by XMLicious at 7:51 PM on April 8, 2012
Besides that, sorry to hear about your dog. Thanks. It's a nuisance sometimes--especially now that we've got an actual baby in diapers, too. But he's a good dog and we manage. Still, it's a shame.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:38 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by saulgoodman at 7:38 AM on April 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
In further Googling about this stuff I came across a nicely detailed 2002 Taiwanese paper (in English) describing the worldwide use of meat industry by-products.
posted by XMLicious at 8:29 AM on April 9, 2012
posted by XMLicious at 8:29 AM on April 9, 2012
...but with salt water to plump it up.
I cook things in salt water. In ammonia, not so much.
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:43 AM on April 9, 2012
I cook things in salt water. In ammonia, not so much.
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:43 AM on April 9, 2012
I cook things in salt water. In ammonia, not so much.
What part of "It weighs more, you pays more" don't you understand? Point is, the salt water is injected to make it look like you are buying more meat than you think, and to add weight so that it costs more.
That's what adulteration is. That's what adulteration does.
Spritzing with ammonia is not adulteration.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:38 AM on April 9, 2012
What part of "It weighs more, you pays more" don't you understand? Point is, the salt water is injected to make it look like you are buying more meat than you think, and to add weight so that it costs more.
That's what adulteration is. That's what adulteration does.
Spritzing with ammonia is not adulteration.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:38 AM on April 9, 2012
But you didn't mention any particular food either when you protested accepting "wet pink viscera paste as a food ingredient". It didn't seem like you were acknowledging that it is a standard food ingredient and just complaining about a particular use of it.
FOR THE LOVE OF -- It's in ground beef, without notification. That's what everyone is, and I am, upset about. That's what we're talking about. Are you playing the fool?
Putting it into other things without notification is also questionable in my book. Even hot dogs. If you want to sell a product that's "lean finely-textured beef," then do it without euphemisms and I'm okay with it. I also don't know who would buy it in that case.
Why you keep repeating "wet pink viscera paste," with the quotes, is beyond me. It was a throwaway synonym, a joke. If you find it offensive for some reason, well, I find eating it without knowing about it offensive.
I hadn't read in any of the pink slime stories so far that it isn't legal to put into food into Canada and the U.K.
Both of the references in the Wikipedia page are cited. Canada - UK. The UK link is to Yahoo so it's not exactly a primary source, but still. This does not coordinate with your statement. What is your source? (I apologize if you mentioned it above, but it's not a short thread.)
If I'm reading this book correctly this sort of thing industrially produced (though I haven't just been talking about an industrial product) has been used in the U.K. for decades, then in 1995 the use of cattle vertebrae in making it was banned, then in 2001 "MRM" (mechanically recovered meat) from sheep, cattle, and goats was banned due to concern about BSE / mad cow disease.
So, here is my understanding of the timeline involved:
In 1994-5, the substance is taken off the market because of health concerns. A mechanism is proposed, the ammonia spraying, to disinfect it.
In 2001, the new system is approved for use, and the material returns to use in human food.
In 2002, Dr. Gerald Zirnstein in an internal USDA memo coins the term "pink slime," and expresses concern over its use as a food product.
However, the Wikipedia page, Zirnstein, and widely cited other sources state that before 2001, it had only been used in pet food and cooking oil. This isn't jiving with this timeline, or your statements. Could you explain?
But no one so far in this thread has mentioned danger from mad cow disease as an objection to pink slime. Is this what was said in the source you were reading?
Even if mad cow disease was the reason its use was stopped in the first place, I am happy if it is continued to be excluded from food use.
I am as cognizant of the dangers of media-induced panic as you are. But I also recognize that sometimes the public has legitimate concerns that must be addressed. It is my position that this is one of those cases, and I have yet to see something to convince me otherwise. I hope it is evident, however, that I might be convinced if for some reason I am proven wrong. That's going to have to overcome my revulsion at this stuff being in food I might accidentally be served.
I was at a Huddle House last night, and I realized there was nothing saying their hamburger meat doesn't contain the substance, and they had no real idea themselves if it did. That is, ultimately, what I'm concerned with -- if we had some solid idea if the stuff was in a particular food item then we could avoid those places, or at least menu items, that contain it. But that's not the case right now; ground beef either might contain it or not, and we really have no way of telling. That is the situation I'd like to see change. However, knowing the realities of the marketplace, in that event there is a good chance that it gets buried under euphemistic code-words like "lean finely-textured beef," and beef that doesn't contain it gets sold as "premium" at a substantial markup, meaning low income folks get stuck with it anyway. So, if its use were outlawed completely I would not be against it.
If there's an actual risk from BSE involved, that would be reason to ban it
For heaven's sake, you can eat dirt and it probably won't kill you. It doesn't make it a good condiment or salad topping.
Since we're continuing to discuss this and re-hashing old arguments: what about gelatin / aspic? As I pointed out above, it's made from inedible parts of animals like the bones and skin.
It's also well-known where it comes from. It's the secrecy involved that galls me.
(And I'll repeat: I sanitize every surface raw meat comes in contact with as well as things like wood-handled knives I use for preparation, don't you? If you don't, I again have to question how much these complaints are actually concerned with food safety.)
As I said before (if you can say it, then so can I), my reasons are for revulsion more than safety.
posted by JHarris at 11:04 AM on April 9, 2012
FOR THE LOVE OF -- It's in ground beef, without notification. That's what everyone is, and I am, upset about. That's what we're talking about. Are you playing the fool?
Putting it into other things without notification is also questionable in my book. Even hot dogs. If you want to sell a product that's "lean finely-textured beef," then do it without euphemisms and I'm okay with it. I also don't know who would buy it in that case.
Why you keep repeating "wet pink viscera paste," with the quotes, is beyond me. It was a throwaway synonym, a joke. If you find it offensive for some reason, well, I find eating it without knowing about it offensive.
I hadn't read in any of the pink slime stories so far that it isn't legal to put into food into Canada and the U.K.
Both of the references in the Wikipedia page are cited. Canada - UK. The UK link is to Yahoo so it's not exactly a primary source, but still. This does not coordinate with your statement. What is your source? (I apologize if you mentioned it above, but it's not a short thread.)
If I'm reading this book correctly this sort of thing industrially produced (though I haven't just been talking about an industrial product) has been used in the U.K. for decades, then in 1995 the use of cattle vertebrae in making it was banned, then in 2001 "MRM" (mechanically recovered meat) from sheep, cattle, and goats was banned due to concern about BSE / mad cow disease.
So, here is my understanding of the timeline involved:
In 1994-5, the substance is taken off the market because of health concerns. A mechanism is proposed, the ammonia spraying, to disinfect it.
In 2001, the new system is approved for use, and the material returns to use in human food.
In 2002, Dr. Gerald Zirnstein in an internal USDA memo coins the term "pink slime," and expresses concern over its use as a food product.
However, the Wikipedia page, Zirnstein, and widely cited other sources state that before 2001, it had only been used in pet food and cooking oil. This isn't jiving with this timeline, or your statements. Could you explain?
But no one so far in this thread has mentioned danger from mad cow disease as an objection to pink slime. Is this what was said in the source you were reading?
Even if mad cow disease was the reason its use was stopped in the first place, I am happy if it is continued to be excluded from food use.
I am as cognizant of the dangers of media-induced panic as you are. But I also recognize that sometimes the public has legitimate concerns that must be addressed. It is my position that this is one of those cases, and I have yet to see something to convince me otherwise. I hope it is evident, however, that I might be convinced if for some reason I am proven wrong. That's going to have to overcome my revulsion at this stuff being in food I might accidentally be served.
I was at a Huddle House last night, and I realized there was nothing saying their hamburger meat doesn't contain the substance, and they had no real idea themselves if it did. That is, ultimately, what I'm concerned with -- if we had some solid idea if the stuff was in a particular food item then we could avoid those places, or at least menu items, that contain it. But that's not the case right now; ground beef either might contain it or not, and we really have no way of telling. That is the situation I'd like to see change. However, knowing the realities of the marketplace, in that event there is a good chance that it gets buried under euphemistic code-words like "lean finely-textured beef," and beef that doesn't contain it gets sold as "premium" at a substantial markup, meaning low income folks get stuck with it anyway. So, if its use were outlawed completely I would not be against it.
If there's an actual risk from BSE involved, that would be reason to ban it
For heaven's sake, you can eat dirt and it probably won't kill you. It doesn't make it a good condiment or salad topping.
Since we're continuing to discuss this and re-hashing old arguments: what about gelatin / aspic? As I pointed out above, it's made from inedible parts of animals like the bones and skin.
It's also well-known where it comes from. It's the secrecy involved that galls me.
(And I'll repeat: I sanitize every surface raw meat comes in contact with as well as things like wood-handled knives I use for preparation, don't you? If you don't, I again have to question how much these complaints are actually concerned with food safety.)
As I said before (if you can say it, then so can I), my reasons are for revulsion more than safety.
posted by JHarris at 11:04 AM on April 9, 2012
It's in ground beef, without notification.
But as I've said above, "beef" doesn't even specifically refer to meat. Beef bouillon, for example, is all of the gross stuff, the remains of the carcass, boiled and rendered down to a liquid and seasoned. When I make chicken stock I basically take an entire roast chicken carcass that has all of the meat stripped off and throw the whole thing in a pot and render it down. (And this is what cookbooks tell you to do.)
I actually went and looked at a package of ground beef from my freezer last night and the word "meat" doesn't appear in the labeling of the product. It appears once in the "safe handling" instructions that are identical on every product in the butcher section of the supermarket I go to including bones and gizzards, saying that this is a "product prepared from inspected meat and/or poultry".
I have always assumed that ground beef that isn't labeled "ground steak" or "ground sirloin" or "ground chuck", especially cheap ground beef, is effectively some grade of un-spiced sausage filling. That's why this doesn't seem like an issue of secrecy to me.
If you look at the Canadian link you provided there it's discussing what's allowed in Mechanically Separated Meat, the amounts of skin and bone fragments and organs allowed. What's said in the Yahoo link about the UK doesn't appear to contradict what I got out of the epidemiology textbook I linked to. Timeline-wise, the BBC articles I was looking at ranging over the last decade also mention MRM having been used for decades and described it as a "red slurry".
At least one of the statements in that WP article cited to the Canadian government page you linked to also says
Canada does allow Finely Textured Meat to be "used in the preparation of ground meat" and "identified as ground meat" under certain conditions.(At this moment it says that, at least, I haven't looked to see how rapidly it's changing.)
Yeah, the Wikipedia article on pink slime says "Prior to the invention of the disinfection process, beef scraps could only be sold as pet food or as an ingredient for cooking oil" and links to a text article at a local Ohio television station as a citation. But this is so obviously false I didn't actually think you were basing anything on that. Just look in Google books or Google News archives or other sources like those, beef scraps and beef trimmings have at the very least been used in cheap ground beef for decades - I was seeing mention of this in newspapers from the 70's and 80's, and besides that's what sausage has always been made from, unless you're disputing that?
I don't take offense to the "wet pink viscera paste" thing at all, as I said it seems like an accurate description, I didn't realize that you were joking. I wasn't using scare quotes, just normal quotes.
Also, FYI, newspaper articles from the 1970s I was looking at defined "hamburger" as a lower-grade product than "ground beef", no idea if that's still convention.
In any case, we can agree that labeling standards are entirely appropriate. In looking through all kinds of material it doesn't appear to me that terms like "ground chuck" and "ground sirloin" and "ground steak" are governed by law either, so it seems like there can be a spectrum of quality levels in labeling our ground beef paste products.
posted by XMLicious at 12:28 PM on April 9, 2012
Spritzing with ammonia is not adulteration.
Okay, now I know you're playing lawyer games rather than debating honestly.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:47 PM on April 9, 2012
Okay, now I know you're playing lawyer games rather than debating honestly.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:47 PM on April 9, 2012
Yeah, the Wikipedia article on pink slime says "Prior to the invention of the disinfection process, beef scraps could only be sold as pet food or as an ingredient for cooking oil" and links to a text article at a local Ohio television station as a citation. But this is so obviously false I didn't actually think you were basing anything on that.
As I said, it's a widely cited thing, and the USDA guy who started the whole affair has said it. When you say it's "obviously false," take it up with him. It could be reconciled with the other sources you mention (it would help if you could put your finger on something definite), however, if it's a matter of scale.
This is turning into a real mess of hair-splitting. "Beef trimmings" does not mean the same thing to an ordinary consumer as to a agribusiness beef company. This may well be part of all the outrage -- more information getting on what parts of a cow are being put into whatever beef products they consume. Public information on these long-standing practices is a good thing, I think.
On there being a range of food quality levels: it would be nice, not only if these things were determined with some degree of rigor, but also if it didn't become "dark" information, if it would be printed on the package or else a link to a website where a customer could learn more.
I have enjoyed hot dogs in the past, but now I can't eat them. The more I think about what goes into them, the less edible they become to me. It's not something I can control; it's a strong visceral reaction, it closes my throat and makes me gag. I'd wager that I'm not alone. The danger to me is that, without solid information about what contains it or doesn't, the pink slime thing has a strong danger of this aversion leaking out and infecting everything else made of ground beef. That's what I need to know. Apparently, enough other people have been horrified that things may in fact actually change, which I can only consider to be a good thing.
posted by JHarris at 4:58 PM on April 9, 2012
As I said, it's a widely cited thing, and the USDA guy who started the whole affair has said it. When you say it's "obviously false," take it up with him. It could be reconciled with the other sources you mention (it would help if you could put your finger on something definite), however, if it's a matter of scale.
This is turning into a real mess of hair-splitting. "Beef trimmings" does not mean the same thing to an ordinary consumer as to a agribusiness beef company. This may well be part of all the outrage -- more information getting on what parts of a cow are being put into whatever beef products they consume. Public information on these long-standing practices is a good thing, I think.
On there being a range of food quality levels: it would be nice, not only if these things were determined with some degree of rigor, but also if it didn't become "dark" information, if it would be printed on the package or else a link to a website where a customer could learn more.
I have enjoyed hot dogs in the past, but now I can't eat them. The more I think about what goes into them, the less edible they become to me. It's not something I can control; it's a strong visceral reaction, it closes my throat and makes me gag. I'd wager that I'm not alone. The danger to me is that, without solid information about what contains it or doesn't, the pink slime thing has a strong danger of this aversion leaking out and infecting everything else made of ground beef. That's what I need to know. Apparently, enough other people have been horrified that things may in fact actually change, which I can only consider to be a good thing.
posted by JHarris at 4:58 PM on April 9, 2012
I started doing the searches I'd suggested and demonstrating what all the top results said but I realized that despite your request for definite sources per your "hair-splitting" comment it may seem to you that they don't apply; so I'm not going to spend more time transcribing. Here's the second hit I came across looking for "beef scraps" "beef trimmings" in Books since I've already got that down:
Certainly, I would hope that this whole issue can at the very least lead people to inform themselves more about what's in food, even just stuff like picking up a container of canned sausage to see what legal common ingredients in cheap sausage are. And pushing for better food labeling or safety would be fantastic too - and indeed, we're at the point in the information technology age where there's no reason for fresh or butcher-shop products to not be labeled as clearly and thoroughly as canned stuff, if there ever was such a reason - I'm just not as optimistic about the odds for that outcome as you are, because of the tone of most of the outrage I've been seeing.
posted by XMLicious at 11:01 PM on April 9, 2012
- A hit in a periodical called Caterer & hotelkeeper, Volume 183, from 1990. The entire book can't be previewed but here are a couple of snippets that are visible:
The rest was what butchers call. l believe. chain steak. Now. l am almost sure that the collop in question did not breach the Trades Descriptions Act. lt is quite OK for butchers to off-load chain and gristle at £6.45 per lb if customers are daft enough to pay for it.
...
"of cuts which will produce a satisfactory end product including beef trimmings. but excluding head meat and offals". Surely it would be in butchers' interests to advertise the fact that mince is made from 100% beef scraps?"
Certainly, I would hope that this whole issue can at the very least lead people to inform themselves more about what's in food, even just stuff like picking up a container of canned sausage to see what legal common ingredients in cheap sausage are. And pushing for better food labeling or safety would be fantastic too - and indeed, we're at the point in the information technology age where there's no reason for fresh or butcher-shop products to not be labeled as clearly and thoroughly as canned stuff, if there ever was such a reason - I'm just not as optimistic about the odds for that outcome as you are, because of the tone of most of the outrage I've been seeing.
posted by XMLicious at 11:01 PM on April 9, 2012
Okay, now I know you're playing lawyer games rather than debating honestly.
The word "adulteration" has a specific definition. If using words properly constitutes "playing lawyer games," well, someone owes me a degree.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:21 PM on April 10, 2012
The word "adulteration" has a specific definition. If using words properly constitutes "playing lawyer games," well, someone owes me a degree.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:21 PM on April 10, 2012
a·dul·ter·ate (-dlt-rt)
tr.v. a·dul·ter·at·ed, a·dul·ter·at·ing, a·dul·ter·ates
To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients
That apparently doesn't include ammonia, I guess.
posted by Mental Wimp at 5:52 PM on April 10, 2012
tr.v. a·dul·ter·at·ed, a·dul·ter·at·ing, a·dul·ter·ates
To make impure by adding extraneous, improper, or inferior ingredients
That apparently doesn't include ammonia, I guess.
posted by Mental Wimp at 5:52 PM on April 10, 2012
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